According to the NFL's official player participation information, here's how the Titans lined up in yesterday's 51-28 loss to the Broncos.
Offense (50 total)
QB: Ryan Fitzpatrick 50
RB/FB: Chris Johnson 30, Shonn Greene 16, Quinn Johnson 12
TE: Taylor Thompson 29, Visanthe Shiancoe 26, Craig Stevens 11
WR: Nate Washington 39, Justin Hunter 38, Kendall Wright 38, Michael Preston 9
OL: Andy Levitre 50, Michael Roos 50, Brian Schwenke 50, David Stewart 50, Chance Warmack 50, Mike Otto 2
Defense (95 total)
DE: Derrick Morgan 69, Ropati Pitoitua 40, Karl Klug 27, Kamerion Wimbley 26
DT: Sammie Lee Hill 70, Jurrell Casey 68, Antonio Johnson 30, Mike Martin 21
LB: Moise Fokou 65, Zach Brown 38, Akeem Ayers 33, Zaviar Gooden 31, Colin McCarthy 30
CB: Jason McCourty 93, Alterraun Verner 93, Coty Sensabaugh 77
S: Bernard Pollard 95, Michael Griffin 90, George Wilson 44, Daimion Stafford 5
Patrick Bailey, Jackie Battle, Beau Brinkley, Chris Spencer, Leon Washington, and Blidi Wreh-Wilson each appeared on special teams but not on offense or defense. Rusty Smith was active but did not appear in the game.
After the jump, the usual collection of notes.
1. This is a hard game to cut through the thick of, what with the play disparity. This is especially so on defense-unless your players have unbelievable stamina, you're going to be rotating a lot. Compared to a normal 65 to 70 snap game, would a player like Derrick Morgan have played 60 snaps or the 50 his prorated numbers suggest he would have? On offense, meanwhile, the Titans ran 28 offensive plays in the first two and a half quarters, at which point they were down 34-21. Would Justin Hunter have played as many snaps as Nate Washington and Kendall Wright if over a third of the plays hadn't come down multiple scores in the fourth quarter?
2. Teams tell you what they think by what they do, and giving Visanthe Shiancoe 26 snaps to Craig Stevens' 11 speaks volumes to me, as does targeting Shiancoe the first play of the game or the fact that he caught the ball 3 times (one negated by penalty), as many times as Taylor Thompson has and more than Craig Stevens has all season. That tells me there's basically no chance Craig Stevens sees the $3.4 million salary he's scheduled to make next season.
3. Michael Preston's 9 snaps were a season high, though he played more in the four games he was up at the end of last season. He also played 18 snaps on special teams, which is what you want from your WR4.
4. Most of the defensive line figures are explained straightforwardly by my note in #1, but the one that is not is Sammie Lee Hill's 70 snaps. That was not just his most this season, but in every previous game he'd played at least 22 fewer snaps than Jurrell Casey. This was, in fact, the first game this season Casey did not lead all defensive tackles in snaps played.
5. The most bizarre personnel note from Sunday's game was probably that Zaviar Gooden got the start after not playing a single defensive snap in the entire season up to that point. I noted this on Twitter, but the Titans seemed to be taking packaging their linebackers to the extreme. They played the vast majority of the game in a nickel look, opening with the 4-2-5 nickel with Gooden and Moise Fokou, but also showing the 3-3-5 nickel with Akeem Ayers, Zach Brown, and Colin McCarthy at times. Gregg Williams did this in the Saints' Super Bowl win against Peyton Manning's Colts, but with a week off you have time to do interesting things for the Super Bowl. Doing it for a regular season game your team is pretty likely to lose is an interesting call.
6. While Gooden's play meant one third-round pick from this year on defense finally played meaningful snaps, Blidi Wreh-Wilson was relegated to special teams work. In other news, Tom continues to dream about a draft of Star Lotulelei, Larry Warford, Marqise Goodwin, and actually having their 2014 third-round pick.
7. Wes Welker's injury results in the cancellation of "Coty Sensabaugh v opposing WR3" watch, but I will not begrudge teams for playing nickel against 2-TE personnel when one of those tight ends is Julius Thomas and the team is quarterbacked by Peyton Manning.
8. Daimion Stafford's 5 snaps were the most in his career, though I'm guessing all of them came when Michael Griffin went to the bench with his injury.
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